The COVID-19 pandemic has revived the debate on what future destinations should be. While medieval plague and cholera pandemics led to street widening in the 19th century, experts believe that the current health crisis will increase commitment to sustainable development, the environment and pedestrians.
In addition, hotels will see a number of trends that businesses must adopt in order to keep up with this new way of understanding destinations and tourism.
Man and health
The first trend that many cities have followed for many years is to return space for pedestrians. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the anthropocentric, human or pedestrian city will triumph, proving how important it is for citizens and tourists to have space to walk. A walking and green city improves the health of those who walk its streets, encouraging exercise and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle, as well as reducing environmental pollution by reducing space for cars.
For example, the Spanish Pontevedra stands out: 70% of trips around the city are on foot or by bicycle, 80% of children go to school on foot, and there is no more regulated parking, but there are free parking spaces that can only be occupied by 15 people.
Compact and convenient
The concept of pedestrian accessibility is one of the main elements of a compact city, which is designed to reduce the need of citizens or visitors to use personal vehicles.
The compact and close to the center city puts citizens in the center, and all their needs should be within walking distance: school, work, hospital and shops. This concept also helps the traveler, who can now find a destination by visiting areas outside the historic center. At the same time, the desire to be close to the city makes it possible to open hotels and housing of any type, as it will be much easier to discover.
An example of this is the concept of a 15-minute city of Paris: residents move to different compact neighborhoods integrated into a large polycentric city.
Mobile and inclusive
The latest concept came from Sweden: a 1-minute city wants residents to become co-architects and redesign their streets in one minute. This is a hyperlocal project because it focuses on the immediate urban landscape, using the street as the main unit of the city.
Sweden has developed a set of urban furniture that residents can use according to their needs: flower pots, seats, bicycle racks, children’s areas or outdoor gyms. This model of mobile city is part of the trend of tactical urbanism and participatory urbanism.
Clever
Technology brings us closer to smart cities, an intelligent model that constantly provides citizens with information to make life easier. At the tourist level, more and more cities are joining the Smart Destinations network.
Traffic lights, buses and shops will communicate with each other; mobile applications will show the nearest parking spaces; In addition, Wi-Fi will be available throughout the city. In this regard, Tokyo stands out, combining environmental friendliness with technology, becoming a smart city focused on creating renewable energy sources for public lighting.